Hey Leon,
We also run a pre-order app ([Early Bird](Reviews: Early Bird: Preorder & Restock - Early Bird: Preorder, Partial Pay & Restock App for Shopify | Shopify App Store 2024&utm_content=leon99)). Keen to see if our simplified process would suit your business better.
I’m the non-tech co-founder but from my understanding, we keep it simple by helping you auto-tag each order as a “pre-order”. Then set it to be a “Hold/Scheduled” fulfillment until your selected release date.
On the release date, our app automatically changes the fulfillment status from “Hold/Scheduled” to “Unfulfilled”, and you or your inventory management system take control from there.
Technically we let Shopify take care of the fulfillment status based on your selected pre-order purchase option:
- Pay in full upfront, fulfill later
- Pay a partial deposit now, pay the rest and fulfill later
- Pay a $0 deposit now, pay in full and fulfill later
This way we don’t interfere with fulfillment systems and let you or your inventory management system retrieve the data from Shopify’s native Orders.
Keen to learn more about what your pre-order end-to-end process looks like and see if we’re the right fit for your business. I’ll ping my technical co-founders in the morning (it’s 1am here in Australia haha).
We have a free plan with no commission fees too for you to try on a test product first.